Welcome to my weekly blog, SATURDAY SESSIONS!         

In this blog, for the perusal of all our students, past, present and future, I include an extract from our interactive presentation Course, Ireland and its Culture.

If you wish to ask me any question about the text, by the way, just send me an e-mail at greg@bluefeather.ie

THE FAIRIES (Part 2)

The banshee (bean sídh), or woman-fairy, wailed outside the house at night if someone was going to die. She could appear as an old woman or a beautiful young lady. You can spot her from a distance washing clothes or as a face in the window, combing her hair. On no account should she be approached!

Fairies were also known to steal babies from their cots and replace them with changelings. These changelings are usually very difficult (and often very ugly) babies. They also have huge appetites and don't feed from the mother's breast but from the table. However, they never put on weight. They only live to be two or three, even though it has been said that a few have lived into their teens. Curiously, you may also have adult changelings; the identical man or woman replacement is cold, distant and aloof with no interest in family or friends.

There is the story of a baby who was stolen by the fairies. He came back after twenty years, but as a young man, was disappointed when he compared the real world to the paradise he had been used to in the land of the fairies.

Once they take you and you eat food there, you can't return home voluntarily. They were also known to abduct young men and teach them how to play the pipes. Fairyland is a place of delights where music, singing, dancing and feasting are continuously enjoyed.

The men returned as great musicians and some of Ireland's most beautiful traditional songs, especially for the uileann pipes, are said to have come from the fairies. Often those same men died young because the fairies wanted them back to play for them.

Never disturb a heap of stones in a field or cut down a tree or a bush on a fairy rath. If you are out in the countryside and you think you are being followed by a fairy, find a stream and cross it and you will be safe.

Always leave a little food out for the fairies; they won't eat it, of course, but they will absorb the spirit of the food, so don't eat it the next morning or don't give it to the birds. When people made butter in the old days, they always left an ounce for the fairies. There is the story of the woman who was on trial for watering her milk and then selling it. Her defence was, 'Sure 'twas only the three fairy drops I added, you honour!'

The fairy wand or magic wand was said to have been from the branch of an apple-tree; the wand of the druids came from the yew-tree.

A fairy-woman from the sea or type of mermaid was known as a maighdean-mhara or sea-maiden.

The leprechauns made shoes for the fairy tribes. These little men (they are all male!) also seem to change their size but many people say they are about 60 cm tall.

The name 'leprechaun' may have come from the Irish leith bhrogán, shoemaker.You can hear them tapping on a shoe in the woods or under a hedge. They brew their own alcohol and although they regularly get drunk, they are known to hold their drink, even though they become irritable and argumentative. Leprechauns are the bankers of the fairy world and know where the containers (croc) of ancient gold can be found. They avoid humans because they don't trust them. They have a strong sense of honour and will always return one good deed for another.

If you catch a leprechaun, be sure to maintain eye contact with him all the time and he will take you to the pot (croc) of gold at the end of the rainbow. But if you lose eye contact with him for one second, he'll disappear!

That's why nobody has ever succeeded in getting the gold. The Hollywood version of leprechauns makes them about 10cm tall and of course, the fairies are like little butterflies in Hollywood. But having said that, fairies can also take on the shape of beautiful little butterflies!